My pals at Moontaxi were featured in this Globe article on the music industry:

“When Apple broadens its serv­ice to the Windows environment — expected some time later this year — the potential audience will expand dramatically. Canada will be added to the Apple system when the CRIA completes its ne­gotiations in the fall.

At that time, Canadian competi­tors will also enter the field. One that is ready to go is PureTracks, a pay-for-play service developed by Toronto firm Moontaxi Media Inc.

“All the signals are looking very positive,” said Moontaxi founder Alistair Mitchell. “We’re still plan­ning our launch for the fall.”

The PureTracks content will in­clude material from all the major Canadian record companies and the bigger independent labels, Mr. Mitchell said. The “indies” are cru­cial, because “a big reason why people go on-line to look for music is to find stuff that is new, emerging, niche repertoire,” he said.

While the company had origi­nally considered charging a monthly subscription for down­loads, market research clearly showed consumers much pre­ferred a per-download pricing structure.

Apple’s success with its 99-cent-a-tune system underlined that “à la carte” was the way to go, Mr. Mitchell said. It also showed there was clearly a business case for a high-quality pay system in competition with free downloads. Apple’s experience “told us it was worth our while to be making this happen,” he said.”